


don't waste your shot.

by sakuraba (herrscher)



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: honestly fuck joshua but i love him anyway, i need answers squeenix, just pretend neku becomes composer i guess, who wins if neku shot himself? the true question
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 21:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15518805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herrscher/pseuds/sakuraba
Summary: ‘an eye for an eye,’ he would surely imply, if he moved his lips an inch from their self-satisfied grin, ‘and haven’t i taken more from you than you have from i, dear?’





	don't waste your shot.

the butt of the gun nestles comfortably in your grip. your palms are uncalloused, fingers hardly show the wear of your work beyond the marks you left in your wake from picking at them, a nervous habit never lost, never moved on from. you feel the sweat between the firearm and your hand, almost consider letting go of your grip, letting the gun fall to the ground. perhaps it would misfire, and you would be found innocent in yoshiya’s trial of morals.  
  
thirty seconds. you were innocent to begin with, and your blood that stained murals that day in the backstreets is evidence enough; a lamb slaughtered by a wolf in sheep’s clothing. yoshiya turns to face you, the barrel of his gun pointed straight between your ribs, aimed for your heart – the same wound replicated twice, a double-death of one person. perhaps it’s laughable enough for a nonfiction book, perhaps ludicrous enough for a novella befitting the young-adult section of a local bookstore. perhaps it would have been something you would read, dark, detailing the disaster of trust, the loss of self when one has faith in others. this reformation isn’t working.  
  
certainly, it seems as though yoshiya notices that himself, smirk played upon thin lips, and his is an existence of deceit. if someone were to compare him to a kitsune, a god of tricks and deception, he would have no qualms with such description. if a composer is truly a god of their given ward, then perhaps a better comparison is loki. a god finally kept for his crimes, whose pain causes the earth to shake from its intensity. the idea that he will face retribution soothes your soul.  
  
twenty seconds. you stare down the barrel of his gun, and you keep yours at arm’s length. yoshiya scoffs at your apparent disgust at the concept of murder, almost as to say that you deserve to take his existence. ‘an eye for an eye,’ he would surely imply, if he moved his lips an inch from their self-satisfied grin, ‘and haven’t i taken more from you than you have from i, dear?’ he would laugh, and you would catch yourself second-guessing your morality. you are better than a god whose only intentions of existence is to destroy that which conflicts with his own beliefs.  
  
your thoughts float back to those about the higher plane. how many angels sit back, allow a mere child like yoshiya (he uses the term lightly, surely the form he takes when his frequency isn’t restricted is less childlike than the shape he takes now, almost like a teenager his age in front of him) to run rampant, oppose those over which he has dominion and proceed to haggle with lives for the mere existence of humanity in the area over things he has the gall to call ‘sins’? since when was self-hate worse than murder? do the laws not apply to an uncaring god more concerned with his own wants and desires than the hopes and dreams of those dependent upon him?  
  
ten seconds. yoshiya lets out a small quip that you can’t even begin to comprehend, because the blood is rushing behind your ears and drowning out every other sound until it all blends together into a maddening cacophony of noise. you could use your player pin, but your mind is too scattered for that. you’ll likely never understand him, and you’ve resigned yourself to that fact. you think back to the first thoughts you had about this entire game – that you didn’t wish to come back to life, that you don’t want to continue living, and death faces you yet again, time alone keeping you from its embrace.  
  
“are you still mulling over your actions, neku?” his voice breaks the silence, and you squint at the tone he takes, clearly mocking, clearly condescending. “you’ve only a few seconds left to make your choice.”  
  
“i had my choice already made when i came to stand in front of you, yoshiya.” you can’t even think to call him joshua in this moment – joshua is someone different. the person standing in front of you isn’t the same as the player you had spent a week with, gotten to know. he wouldn’t have killed you.  
  
that was only because he was just a character, a charade that yoshiya put into play to decieve you yet again. your breath is caught in your throat.  
  
five seconds.  
  
your gun moves to your own head, and you smile before you pull the trigger.  
  
“neither of us win in this.”

  



End file.
